Mrs Meaden left after three years and has said that she did not enjoy boarding because of the loss of independence and the ‘silly rules’, but Mrs Cooper returned last year to open a boarding house named in her honour.

Old girls: Novelist Jilly Cooper, left, and Dragons’ Den star Deborah Meaden both attended Godolphin, but differ in their assessments of life at the school

The school strives for academic excellence and in 2008 83 per cent of its pupils gained A or B grades in their A-levels.

In 1995 it was the first in the country to ban pupils from using calculators in maths for their first three years because of fears that they were not mastering addition, subtraction, division and multiplication.

A Godolphin school spokesman confirmed that Brown had been suspended during the police investigation, but would not comment further.

A Wiltshire police spokesman said: ‘We can confirm that a 49-year-old male teacher from Salisbury has been arrested on suspicion of sexualassault and subsequently released on police bail pending further inquiries.

‘The investigation relates to an isolated incident which took place away from school premises and the staff member has been suspended.’